LOS ANGELES — The WB has splashed his photo on a large poster decorating a hotel lobby. It’s the same treatment the network gives the glamorous young stars of Everwood and One Tree Hill. In his sleeveless splendor, Larry the Cable Guy would never be confused with the buff, tan hunks of 7th Heaven and Smallville.

Yet his female fans don’t seem to mind. Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall, Larry’s co-stars on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, have marveled at the attention.

"Never in 20 years did I ever have a woman come backstage and want to meet me," Foxworthy says. "Neither did Bill. He [Larry] has no sleeves. He’s got this camouflage hat, his spit cup. Night after night, a dozen beautiful women: ’Can we meet Larry?’ And Bill and I would just look at each other and go, ’I don’t get it.’ "

Larry the Cable Guy, who lives in Sanford and whose real name is Dan Whitney, has an easy explanation. "That’s how it works," he says. "You got to dress like you got money."

The WB is hoping 41-year-old Larry is dressed for success. The network has lined up a half-hour sketch comedy series, Blue Collar TV, inspired by the tour that has grossed more than $15 million. The show will debut July 29 in the 8 p.m. time slot where Survivor, The O.C. and Friends spinoff Joey will compete for viewers. (Tribune Co., which publishes the Orlando Sentinel, has a stake in the WB.)

"Blue Collar TV is part of a strategy to "create a network that doesn’t look the same every hour you turn it on," says Garth Ancier, the WB’s chairman. "I think we probably got a bit stale as a network."

It’s clear that Foxworthy and Larry will add down-home flavor that’s been missing from the WB. They talk to TV critics, who are previewing the fall lineup, via satellite from a tour stop in New Orleans. (Engvall is out of the country.) Larry says there’s no chance he’s moving to Tinseltown.

"I got a lot of friends in Florida, so I’ll probably stay in Florida," he says. "I really like it down there. Plus I’ve been banned from 12 states."

Orlando’s Ashley Drane also appears in Blue Collar TV, playing everything from a 10-year-old girl to a 400-pound woman. She remembers listening to Larry the Cable Guy on the radio every morning on the way to Dr. Phillips High School. She says fans would be surprised to know the real man.

"They think he’s this outrageous, crazy guy," Drane says. "But he is so intelligent and so sensitive."

He’s keeping his sensitive side well-hidden when talking to critics.

"I was gonna get married one time, but I called it off an hour before we were gonna get married because she wouldn’t take my name," Larry says. "I thought that was wrong. I just thought it would be cool — both of us named Larry."

This zany performer grew up on a Nebraska pig farm, then his family moved to West Palm Beach. He started playing the comedy circuit in 1988 and moved into radio in 1992. His daily radio commentaries have won him many fans. They treasure his expressions from "Git-’R-Done!" to "Lord, I apologize," a nod to his preacher father.

"I owe a lot to the radio," Larry says. "I just developed a lot of relationships with radio stations. I did about a three-minute bit every day. So as long as you keep it funny and entertaining for three minutes, they’ll keep you on."

The question now is whether the WB will stick with "Blue Collar TV. Eight episodes have been filmed in Atlanta in front of ecstatic audiences. Orlando’s Drane says the show has a built-in fan base. "The humor that fans love is in the skits," she says.

Executive producer Adam Small praises stars Foxworthy, Engvall and Larry. "They are great sketch players, and I think their generosity as actors is going to come across and just blow America away," he says.

These stars sound as if they’ll settle for amusing America. Foxworthy learned valuable lessons on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which later inspired a movie.

"We never tried to be cutting edge," he says. "We talked about things that made us laugh, and we have similar sense of humor."

Foxworthy worried about network interference — after unhappy sitcom experiences at ABC and NBC — but says the WB has given the makers of Blue Collar TV a lot of freedom. "I think they were the only network that understood what was going on on the Blue Collar tour," he says.

Larry the Cable Guy has the last word. "The only thing is they kind of had to tone me down a little bit because I’m a lot funnier than the other guys," he says. "So they wanted to make sure that we were at an equal basis."